


The Green Zone

by ShinobiCyrus



Series: Ectober Phanfiction [3]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Amity Park (Danny Phantom), Ectober (Danny Phantom), The Ultimate Enemy, aka The Bad Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28773270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinobiCyrus/pseuds/ShinobiCyrus
Summary: Mr. Masters had thought of almost everything when he designed Valerie’s suit. The mask and the bodysuit were nicely insulated to handle the chill of high altitude, and the goggles helped her see Amity from above even clearer than high noon.Not that there was much of anything left to see.
Series: Ectober Phanfiction [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109018
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	The Green Zone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is entirely the fault of the Ectober Prompt "Bad Ending."

Mr. Masters had thought of almost everything when he designed Valerie’s suit. The mask and the bodysuit were nicely insulated to handle the chill of high altitude, and the goggles helped her see Amity from above even clearer than high noon.

Not that there was much of anything left to see. 

The streets were abandoned. The only movement was the wind pushing along newspapers and plastic bags like urban tumbleweed. Some avenues were empty, cars still parked, homes intact; untouched and completely normal save the complete absence of any living soul, like the people had evaporated without a trace. 

Fly over that, the next road over was a warzone. Cars and minivans bumper to bumper, sitting in the streets with their doors open. Abandoned suitcases and luggage, broken windows in houses and shops like jagged teeth. 

If she zoomed in with the goggles, she could even see the human-shaped scorch marks, from where ecto-blasts had hit. 

Valerie brought a finger up to her ear. “Checking in, this is Red One. You there, Dad?”

The radio in her mask coughed out static, buzzing white noise until it cleared in her father’s voice. _“I read you, sweetie. How’s it looking out there?”_

“Just finished the sweep from Earl to 22nd, no sign of any stragglers.” The suit could track ecto-signatures, cold spots, even the electo-magnetic fields ghosts created. It had taken Damon a little tinkering for the suit to be able to track down _living_ targets, along with the dead ones. 

_“Sounds good, hun. Kwan and his team just came back from shopping- sounds like they brought in decent haul.”_

‘Shopping.’ Almost made scavenging through the ruins of a literal ghost-town sound normal and everyday. Still, every little bit helped. Those FEMA rations were running dangerously low. 

“If he found any Sour Kumquat Chews, tell him to save me some.”

 _“I’m sure those were his top priority,”_ Damon chuckled. 

It dawned on her that she should have laughed with him, too. Six months ago, the back-and-forth with her dad never failed to put a little smile of her face, no matter how lousy things got. That might as well had been a life lived by somebody else. “I’m gonna swing around the Elmerton border, see if I can’t find a few more people hiding from the-”

“I think you should bring it in for the night, Val.”

“But most of the search teams haven’t been that far out. I can-”

_“Valerie. You’ve been flying for twelve hours straight. You can’t help people with no sleep and a glider running on empty. We can put a better search plan together in the morning.”_

“…okay, Daddy. I’m headed back home now.”

He sighed, relieved. _“See you soon.”_

Valerie shifted her weight. The glider responded smoothly and banked, putting the dead city behind her. 

Home was always easy to find. With most of Amity dark and condemned, the glow of the massive ghost shield colored the horizon like an ever-present green sunrise. The streets for miles around awash in the shifting, humming surface of the barrier like dancing, radioactive shadows. 

What was left in the town was safe, preserved like a model in a glass bowl. A single step through the shield was the difference between lit, clean streets or a forbidding dark ruin. Even with the alternative in plain site, people still found reasons to raise a fuss. Food, water, blankets were all necessities Valerie understood, but complaining about the shield’s light keeping them up a night? There were reasons Valerie volunteered for patrols. 

No, that was petty. Just the minor annoyances of too many people crammed in too-small a space. It was her Dad’s quick thinking to use the Fenton Works’ ghost shield to create a safe zone to evacuate people to in the first place. People kept asking, demanding they expand it- give everyone more living space. But without the Fentons around to fix anything that went wrong, Damon was reluctant to strain the system until he fully understood the tech. And the shield had to stay on for a long, long time. 

A few blocks from the perimeter, the suit chimed and displayed possible heat signatures on her wrist-mounted screen. Too big to be animals, and too hot to be ghosts haunting the edges of the Green Zone. 

“Hey Dad,” she piped her comm back up. “I just picked up two or three blips about a block from the border. I think there’s people outside the shield.”

_“Roger that. I’ll radio a nearby patrol to check it out.”_

“I can get it done a lot quicker.”

_“Val…”_

“It’s _right_ by the perimeter, Daddy. Just a quick detour.”

_“Okay, okay. Just…be careful?”_

“Always am.”

 _“Liar,”_ he said, not unkindly.

Following the little red dots on her map, Valerie’s heels pumped the glider’s control pedals to shave her speed. She flew low, rooftops larger and crawling slowly below her board as it scanned the streets more thoroughly. 

A shudder skittered up her spine as she passed over Main Street. For once, she regretted the detail her visor could give her, even in the dark.

The National Guard hadn’t listened, when the town tried to warn them. Thought they could handle ‘one lone nut in a jumpsuit.’ Valerie had been grounded with a busted arm and cracked ribs. By the time she had struggled into her suit and flown out, there was nothing left but a slaughterhouse on the asphalt and Phantom lounging on top of a personnel carrier in a beach chair, sunbathing at night while a stereo finished playing _‘We’re gonna be friends.’_

Machine guns and humvees against a ghost. He thought it had been hilarious.

The glider’s jets scattered dust and trash as settled down over the street. According to her scanners, she was close. 

Valerie hopped off and shouldered her ecto-rifle. She primed it, checked the charge-meter on its side. Good to go. 

She crossed the road, staying close to cars for cover and keeping her head on a swivel. Being so close to the ghost shield threw off most of her instruments, which meant she wouldn’t have much warning if something slimy and dead decided to take advantage of a couple of straying humans. Or worse.

The thermal signatures showed up as orange, purplish blobs through the walls. Valerie climbed through a broken storefront, her boots crunching too-loudly on broken glass. This close to the Green Zone, most of the damage had been caused by panicking, looting people rather than the things chasing them. She crouched through aisles picked clean, held her breath as she passed the piles of rotten fruit, then stopped. There: voices, hushed and whispering. 

“I know you’re here,” Valerie called out. “Let’s just make this easy for everybody and-”

Shoes squeaked on tile and three human-shaped orange silhouettes scampered, three rows down. 

“Or not.” Valerie saw what direction they were headed and sprinted. Hopping onto the cashier station, she took a running leap, landed right in front of them and flashed them with the light on her rifle. 

Killing the thermal goggles showed her three kids, maybe around fifth or sixth grade, dazzled like deer by the light. The two boys she recognized- by sight if not by name. One was clutching a bulging duffel bag. The third was a young girl wearing a blue hoodie and a red cap over her dark hair. 

“Hold up, okay?” Valerie told them. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The kids still backed up warily. 

Valerie could have slapped herself. Masked wacko waving a gun around kids. She lowered the rifle and pulled off her her mask, hair spilling out and face hot with the sudden cool air. 

“See? Human. Sorry for scaring you, but you shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous outside the shield.”

“We’re not scared,” one of the boys insisted. He had big front teeth and a baseball cap. 

“Yeah, we’re helping! Look!” The other boy zipped open his duffel and showed Valerie the food crammed inside. Mostly canned goods, bags of rice, instant meals and candy. Things that didn’t spoil easily. Smart. 

“Clever little sneaks, aren’t you?” Valerie shook her head. They’d be in all kinds of trouble when they got back, but it was hard to blame them when everyone was going hungry. The boys grinned with gaps in their teeth, proud and invincible. The girl said nothing and burrowed her hands into the pockets of her hoody, shoulders hunched and wary.

“Haven’t seen you around before,” Valerie told her. Maybe a new survivor the search teams found? The girl looked her in the eye moodily but said nothing. “What’s her story?” Valerie asked the boys.

“She doesn’t really talk much,” the boy with the duffel shrugged. “But she knows where all the best stashes are. And she warns us when monsters are coming.”

A straggler, then. That would explain the filthy clothes. Probably been living on her own, dodging roaming ghosts and scavenging for whatever food she could find.

“Sounds useful,” Valerie said. “You three might make for a good search team when you’re a bit older. But for now,” she cocked her head in the direction of the ghost shield. “I’m taking you back to the Green Zone.”

The boys groaned, already dreading the lecture waiting for them. “Can we at least keep the food?”

Valerie smirked. “Depends, got any Sour Kumquat Chews in there?”

They exchanged looks. “We might,” the boy with hat said, sly as a salesman.

“Alright, you little con-artists,” she made a show of re-priming her ecto-rifle for them. “How about we negotiate someplace a little less apocalyptic?”

The girl in the hoody was the only one who didn’t look very reassured. Her whole body was trembling, her breath coming out in a fog.

“Hey, don’t you worry,” Valerie knelt down to her level. “We’re only a block away from the shield. Nothing you can’t handle, right?” She reached out and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I promise I’ll keep you all safe, okay?”

_“Oh Valerie.”_

All three kids froze. The girl stared, wide-eyed at something past Valerie’s shoulder. A voice like dark, slithering ice snaked down Valerie’s spine.

Behind her, Phantom said, “You know you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

**Author's Note:**

> Crappy part to end it, I know. If you had an 'oh shit' reaction then it did as intended. 
> 
> I know, I'm a bad person. Thanks for reading it anyway!


End file.
